I’ve mentioned this fact on my blog before, where I detailed how I came across the services of transcriptionist Tamara Bentzur of Outsource Transcription Services after interviewing Neil Strauss and querying him on the matter. From my interview:

Do you have any interview transcribing tips?

Yeah – outsource it. (laughs)

For real. Even if I couldn’t afford it.. I just have to have someone else transcribe it. Sometimes it’s good to listen to because then you relive the conversation, but sometimes I find it easier if if I can fucking find someone I could pay a little bit to do it. Even when I didn’t have the money, I was like, fuck – it just makes my life easier.

So I did, and like I said, I’ve engaged Tamara’s services dozens of times since June. She’s awesome. It’s one of the best decisions I’ve made this year.

Some of the other writers didn’t take too kindly to my admission.

M+N writer A.H. Cayley – talented in her own right, and certainly a young writer to keep an eye on – didn’t like the suggestion at all.

Jesus, NiteShok. How incredibly lazy. Her name should go right next to your byline, I think.

I hope you pay her more than half of what you get paid, given that transcription is the longest, most tedious part of the process, and the least fun.

My response:

It’s her business. She is a professional transcriptionist. Why are you so offended by this concept?

Anne again:

I think it’s incredibly lazy, and I’m not sure I’d have the gall to call myself a writer if I didn’t actually do the writing part.

I actually applaud McMillen for his inventiveness while worrying that he might miss nuance.

A fair statement. The responsibility of transcribing a conversation is significant, especially considering the reputation of the publications in which my writing appears. But I trust Tamara. She hasn’t let me down in the five months we’ve had a business relationship. I proof-read everything before it’s submitted, of course, and pay attention to the construction of sentences to ensure that it reads as the conversation played out. Where Tamara’s unsure of certain phrases or the speech is inaudible, she’ll timestamp the section and move on, leaving me to listen back to the audio and finalise the correct transcription.

Writers, what are your thoughts? Is outsourcing interview transcriptions lazy or smart? Does it devalue the role of the writer? Do you feel I’m less of a writer for engaging the services of a professional transcriptionist to free up my time elsewhere?

Hiring Tamara was the smartest thing I have ever done for both interviews and for personal thoughts on articles, plans and just about everything else I record. While some may be concerned about lost nuances, I am concerned about gathering more sources and staying aware of everything else that is going on. Then again, I have a great memory for conversations I have wiht others, so if there was some nuance I would have either caught it and explored it while interviewing or remembered it as I was reading the transcript.

That said, you need confidence in your transcriber and I have found that Tamara hits 95%+ even on topics where she had no prior knowledge. So I am always confident in her having captured not only the gist of what is being transcribed, but the majority of the detail too.

From my perspective it is about productivity and a realization that we can’t, or rather we shouldn’t, try to do it all along. Having a solid reliable team not only makes me more productive, it makes the work more fulfilling as I feel less disconnected from my usual solitary writing.

I deeply respect people who have a white glove approach to touching the ‘art of writing’ in its prior 1950’s glory, but I wonder if these people still write on selectrics too? In the modern era, one of the best tools we have available to us as writers is the network. Whether its researching using our network of ‘friends’ on twitter or hiring remote team members like a transcriptionist or fact checker, I think writers who take advantage of our modern arsenal are clearly the smart ones.

Isn’t that what we have been taught over the years, work smart, not hard?